How much will the fees of those who had a discount on the increases go up?

After the prepaid companies admitted that January bills will come with between 38% and 42% increases (partly to compensate for the month’s inflation, partly to make up for the 2023 losses denounced by the sector), a concern is What increase will the members who completed the monthly form of the Superintendency of Health Services have to face? so that the increases authorized by the Government are applied with a discount, income declaration through.

Although the “Super” resolution established the option of reduced increases until July 2024 (always for households that declared income less than six minimum vital and mobile wages), the problem was brought forward because Javier Milei’s recent decree repealed the normative.

According to official data from August, more than 320,000 people They came filling out the form that conveyed this kind of subsidy for increases. Due to the accumulation of increases not applied throughout the year, some entities calculate up to 40% arrears in the fees of these affiliates.

Only one entity reported a lower percentage because the behavior of its clientele, they say, was oscillating: “Some submitted the form for a couple of months and then did not do so again.” However, The majority of the prepaid companies consulted confirmed the 40% delay.

We arrive, then, at the problem, which is to elucidate whether there are real chances that an indeterminate number of people to whom the full increases were “kicked” and then will receive, now, under the door, bills with little more than a doubling of your health coverage fee.

It would be the sum of the update corresponding to the aforementioned delay plus between 38% and 42% increase already confirmed by the entities for January. Could occur?

Clarion consulted six large entities. Five answered. All initially and in their own way outlined that “Well, The form thing is now over and the entire fee should be charged.”.

None of them were involved in explaining how they will charge it. They all assured that, in one way or another, they will recompose. Three of the five stated that they may do a proration so that “the only adjustment variable is not the member.” There were no further details. Everyone, even this Sunday before Christmas, was doing their math.

It is worth pointing out that the measure of the discounted increases was in response to a childish tug-of-war within the former presidential duo. It was October 2022 and the then President Alberto Fernández had authorized double-digit increases in prepaid companies, a sector that had been protesting for years against a delay that they considered unsustainable.

However, after fines that month, a tweet from Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner harshly criticized the measure, which led to a couple of days later, already in November of that year, the President ended up launching a couple of “relief” measures to face prepaid installments.

Everything was reflected in decree 743 (now repealed by Milei) and took definitive form in two resolutions of the Superintendency of Health Services (SSS), of January 2023. The measures would be launched in February. One of them would open the possibility of obtaining discounts on increases, through the income declaration.

To understand the degree of discomfort that this measure – now diluted – generated, it is worth recovering the visceral sensations that a manager of an important private medicine entity metaphorically shared: “We were forced to sign that with a gun to the back of our heads. If the providers did not sign, they did not give any increase.”

Some sources in the sector come out with wisdom and some sensitivity: “The delay, on average, is 40%, but we cannot collect it all at once. “It would be impossible for people.”

Others gossip about what was discussed in a meeting with the Ministry of Health itself, now led by Mario Russo: they were told “freedom but with caution”. Freedom to increase (something that the decree allows, as long as it is not rejected in Congress or by Justice) but with the waist so as not to “kill” people’s pockets.

From one of the entities with the most members in the country they admitted that “some are going to fall out of the portfolio, of course, but there has to be a battery of measures that balances the possibilities.”

Companies are beginning to understand that they have gained “sovereignty,” using the words of a manager who emphasized that each one will recompose “in their own way”: “What we think is that people have to be able to accommodate their salary. If not, it’s crazy. I believe that in less than a year… six months, at most, we cannot accommodate the specific cases of those who filled out the Superintendency form.”

The fear is a mass exodus of members. Now, how important is it for entities to keep in their portfolio homes with such low purchasing power that they could not afford the “small” (compared to those to come) increases authorized in 2023? Clarion He asked for frankness: Is it more convenient for you? lose them than find?

The response was unanimous: there is no intention to reduce the client base and in part that is why we seek to design a range of airplanes low cost. This is justified by the expansion (in establishments and infrastructure) that the sector has had in recent decades. If not taken advantage of, these investments would end up idle.

It is a difficult context. Some sources convey an uneasiness that takes name and surname: “A good part of the members of the prepaid companies are commercial employees. Imagine that if people leave, the one who gets stronger to a large extent is (the secretary of the Commerce union since 1985, Armando) Cavalieri. People, just as they came to the prepaid companies, would immediately return to that social work.”